


Extra Cheese

by connorstoll (quietrook)



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-02-14
Updated: 2015-01-14
Packaged: 2018-01-12 06:17:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 10,548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1182874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quietrook/pseuds/connorstoll
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Leo delivers pizza, among other things, to pay his way through his engineering degree.<br/>Jason belongs to a fraternity and is only at college to please his parents.<br/>What will happen when the two of them meet?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. And You Thought it Couldn't Get Worse

**Author's Note:**

> Will update character list when they're introduced, as well as relationships.  
> Plot is basically a ?? ?? right now so expect anything!  
> ~  
> Written for a friend's birthday!  
> I will update every fourteenth, time and creativity willing.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Leo wakes up late for his second class of the day, and it's a downward spiral from there.

Leo's eyes snapped open and the first thing that he noticed was that something was very wrong. The light coming in through the half-closed blinds was a strong yellow, not the pale vanilla lighting that usually accompanied eight in the morning. He pulled himself into a sitting position and combed the room for his alarm clock. When he finally spotted it, he groaned; it was in two pieces on the floor. Had he accidentally knocked it off the end table in his sleep, or maybe pushed it off in a half awake, not at all lucid state? Either way, he'd have to fix it later. Right now, though, he had other things to worry about.

He eased out of bed and stretched, feeling the ache that came from hunching over a text book for three hours. He'd stayed up a lot longer than usual to study for his calculus test, which he was definitely late for. Leo grabbed his phone, yawning the sleep out of his eyes, and then blinked a couple of times as he stared at the digital clock. There was no way that was the right time. If his phone was right, he hadn't just woken up late - he'd completely missed his first class and was well on his way to being late for his second.

"Shit!"

He dived for the sort-of-clean, oil-splattered and ripped jeans lying by the bathroom door and began hastily tugging them on, tripping before they were completely up. Cursing again, Leo pulled them the rest of the way up and hastily shoved all his stuff into a book bag. After losing ten more minutes looking for the keys to his shitty Toyota - they were in his coffee cup for some reason - he stumbled out into the broad daylight and groaned. He'd forgotten that last night he'd had to park his car in the spot furthest from his front door, due to coming home late. Just the perks of being an on call pizza delivery boy. He decided there wasn't any time to drive conservatively. It didn't matter that he lived less than fifteen minutes from the campus - he was already late for class. Any later and the professor would probably lock him out. The problem was that lunchtime traffic was in full swing. He sped up as soon as the road was clear, but a police car suddenly pulled out from behind a building.

Leo always said that it was a good hiding spot for a cop, but he never really wanted to find out. Pulling over, he grit his teeth and tried to calm down, tightening his hands on the wheel. The old leather creaked.

"Well, son." the burly officer said, coming to a rest in front of Leo's door. "do you know how fast you were going?"

"No idea," Leo replied, focusing on being calm. Calm like an ocean. Calm like a mountain top. Calm like the Buddhist monk sitting on top of the mountain. Calm. 

He wasn't calm. What he was was fucking late.

"You were going sixty in a forty-five zone. Your tags are also expired." 

Shit, he had completely forgotten about that. He could feel his mouth begin to twitch in irritation. The cop was wasting so much of his precious time writing so slowly on the stupid piece of paper. He could almost hear the ticking of the seconds. He couldn't help it.

"Don't you have better things to do than stand around giving innocent college kids tickets?" Leo snapped. "Because I know I have better things to do, like get to class. Why don't you just go back to sitting around on your ass, eating doughnuts or drinking coffee? Or better yet go catch a real criminal!"

That was the wrong thing to say. Thirty minutes later Leo sat in his car regretting his life choices. He figured there was no point to even trying to make it to school right now. He'd just email the professors and ask for the work. If he was lucky, his calculus professor would be in a good enough mood to send him the test. Even if he had a time limit to turn it in, it didn't matter as long as he got to do it. With that in mind, he cranked the car and drove to the nearest fast food place. It might have been a shitty day so far, but there's nothing that a little junk food couldn't fix. Chicken nuggets were the best kind, so he ordered two orders of ten of them. He could probably live off of them, really. He ate in his car to the tune of Ludo (a weird band he'd discovered accidentally through a friend) and was feeling pretty good, despite the crap he'd dealt with earlier. He was well into the second pack of chicken nuggets when he felt the crunch. He swallowed and made a face; disgusting.

"What the hell was that?!"

He pulled the food out of his mouth and barely suppressed the urge to gag. Half of some kind of bug was hanging out of the meat. He'd heard of horror stories about stuff like this, but...

He threw the rest of them away and rushed home, hoping to god that none of it was stuck in his teeth or that it wasn't a toxic bug. He couldn't afford to get sick. Safe to say he'd never eat there again, though. He just wanted to lie down and forget today ever happened, but he couldn't. He had work to do. He emailed his calculus professor and made up some excuse about being sick (though he was worried he might be now) and had until midnight to digitally turn the test in. He studied just a little more (he felt he deserved it at this rate) and roughly an hour later he felt like he'd gotten at least a B on it.

Then sleep. He may not have been awake very long, but a nap was definitely in order before he went to work. He'd need it, anyway; Friday nights are always busy at Olympic Pizza. Before he could fall asleep, though...

His phone rang with the tone he set for his manager. He struggled to sit up and grumbled to himself before answering.

"Yeah?" He stifled a yawn. He was seriously starting to get tired.

"Hey, are you busy? If not, we could really use your help right now... we just got the most ridiculous order!"

"...when you say ridiculous..." He didn't really want to know, but...

"Thirty pizzas in two hours."

"What the hell? Who--- okay, fine," he sighed into the receiver. "I'll be there. Just -- ugh, I'll be there."

It seemed that day was only going to get worse.


	2. When You're Russian for a Pizza...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jason forgot to get the food for the frat party, so now he's in a hurry, but there's a huge misunderstanding...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not really an expert on fraternities, so everything in this comes from what I know, which mostly comes from the media.

Jason had decided that there was no place in the world as loud as a fraternity on a Friday night. Everyone more than likely had a ton of homework (especially considering that it was supposed to be an academic group) but everyone's week of hard work was finally over and they only wanted to do one thing: party.

He sat on the arm of a sofa, watching guys bustle around like bees, preparing for the weekly "You survived a whole week! Let's party!" party. The kitchen area was cluttered with coolers full of ice and beer, and more were being brought in by the minute. It looked like some of the guys had already popped a few tops; they were stumbling a little while hauling in coolers, spilling ice all over the floor, and Jason groaned inwardly. He knew he'd probably be the one to clean it up. He was usually the only one sober enough to remember to clean up after everyone else. 

Sighing, he stood up to help someone carry in new speakers for the sound system. He'd rather just get rid of it, though. He knew he'd have a headache later from all the music, which doesn't typically go well with doing homework. Still, helping out was the right thing to do and he got to pick most of the music they blasted, anyway. It wasn't too bad a situation. He spent the next half hour or so thinking about what kind of music would be playing tonight. He was trying to pick between ska punk and alt-rock when Jacob approached him, arms crossed and a frown on his face.

"Hey, man, where's the food?"

Jason looked up, startled out of his concentration.

"Food? What?" He was about to retort, 'Probably in the kitchen,' and then it hit him. The food. The party food. The food for the people partying. The party food for the party that he was supposed to be responsible for. His thought process must have shown on his face, because Jacob raised an eyebrow.

"So you forgot about the food."

"I'll take care of it," Jason said, and Jacob shook his head.

"Better do it fast. You know the Doc'll flip if he finds out. He's irritable enough without alcohol; drunk and hungry? I wouldn't want to see that."

"Yeah, whatever," Jason shrugged. He didn't really like the fraternity president, Octavian(whom most of the guys referred to as the Doc, or Doc Oc), and didn't really care if he made him mad. The only reason he didn't do something stupid to intentionally piss him off was because he didn't want to disappoint his father by getting kicked out of the fraternity. It didn't really help that Octavian hated him, anyway, so he had to be extra careful -- which meant he had to take care of that food issue right that very second.

He had actually forgotten that it was his responsibility, but he figured that doing his psych project was probably a little bit more important than providing sustenance to drunk people. Right now, though, it was a problem. He pulled out his phone and, after a few minutes of internet scavenging, dialed the closest, cheapest place he could find: Olympic Pizza. They picked up on the third ring.

"Hello, Olympic Pizza," a cheerful sounding girl answered. "How can we help you today?"

"Yeah, uh," Jason swallowed. He didn't know how many pizzas he should order. How much pizza could it take to feed that many people? Thirteen? Thirteen sounded like a good number. "I'd like to order thirteen of your pizzas."

"Thirteen?" She repeated, sounding shocked.

"Uh, yes," he said, shifting the phone to his other ear. "Is that impossible?" He hadn't thought thirteen was a really big number, though he was then wondering if it was really enough.

"No," she said slowly. "When do you need it by?"

"Um..." He said, checking his digital watch quickly. "Two hours, if possible." Thirteen in two hours shouldn't be too difficult, right...? 

There was a small gasp followed by a quiet sigh on the other end.

"It's possible. What would you like on these pizzas, sir?" She sounded exasperated. Jason almost felt bad, but not as bad as he'd feel with a drunk and hungry Octavian threatening to boot him from the fraternity. Hungry hangover Octavian would be even worse, he imagined, and then shuddered. Imagining over.

"Anything. It doesn't matter what's on them -- just whatever."

"Okay... cash or debit?"

"Debit," he said, and gave her his information, moving out of the way of more beer coming through the door. "The Kappa Nu Tau building."

"Of course," she remarked dryly. "They'll be on their way soon. Have a great night."

She hung up before he could respond, and he wondered if they were really busy or something. He had no idea how long it would take to make thirteen pizzas (thirteen probably cheese only pizzas), but he hoped the pizza would come before anyone would realize he'd completely forgotten. All there was to do then was just wait, so Jason decided to help out as much as he could. That meant helping the guys move furniture into other rooms or the garage (drunk people had a bad habit of puking on things, running into things and getting injured, and breaking things). He ran into a problem he somehow hadn't foreseen: almost drunk people carrying furniture was not a good idea. He was trying to go through the door with one of the glass tables, the other person going through backwards, when they stumbled into the wall and the slightly maybe more than slightly drunk guy dropped the thing. Jason, not prepared for the sudden loss of support, dropped his end, too -- right on his foot.

Jason winced and suppressed a curse, instead forcing out: "Get-- pain--"

His staccato message was somehow understood and the table was moved. In the meantime, Jason hobbled into the kitchen on one foot, nearly tripping over one of the seemingly endless containers of beer, until someone was finally nice enough to help him sit down and get him a bag of ice. 

"That's the last time I help anyone do anything," Jason muttered. He watched the hustle of the boys for a while, and then before he had even realized time had passed, real live people were there, music was blasting (and giving him a migraine), and beer was being consumed at an exponential rate. The door bell rang, and no one made a move to go answer the door - could they even hear it? -, so Jason painfully stood up and limped over there.

He pulled open the door to see a skinny Hispanic that looked to be about his age holding a pizza delivery bag.

"Thirty pizzas," the Hispanic kid muttered irritably, shoving the hot holding bag towards him. "If you could hold this for a second while I go get the others." 

Jason really didn't have a choice; the bag was thrust into his hands and the kid turned and stalked back to his car.

"W-wait," Jason sputtered. "Thirty?" He took the pizzas out of the bag and set them just inside the door on one of the few remaining tables, taking so long that the boy was already back with another two bags.

"Here," he said again, scowling. "You wanna help me out here, man?"

"I kind of can't," Jason informed him, gesturing to his sprained or broken or something foot. "But, uh, we didn't order thirty pizzas."

The boy looked at him like he was crazy, so Jason just swallowed and stopped talking. He took the pizzas in and gave the bags back, and the boy went back and forth from his car. It was a cycle. There were indeed thirty pizzas there, though Jason was sure he'd only ordered thirteen. Maybe the girl heard thirty? That would explain her shock. He made a mental note to tip the guy a lot more than he had originally planned. 

Without the pizza holders obscuring his name tag, Jason saw that he was named Leo. The boy named Leo handed him a receipt angrily, and waited impatiently while Jason signed it and added the tip value to it. When he gave it back, the other snatched it and glared.

"Um, thanks," Jason said.

"Listen," the boy finally spoke. "Next time you want to order thirty fucking pizzas, order in advance."

"But I didn't--" Jason started to protest, but Leo was already walking away. He drove off and Jason felt sheepish about the whole thing, not to mention kind of ticked that they'd messed up the order and he'd spent much more money than he meant to. 

But, hey, at least there was pizza. Crisis averted.


	3. Filler: I'm Sorry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jason feels bad about the pizza mishap; Leo doesn't ever want to deal with this again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't update last month so this is a filler chapter before next week's update.
> 
> ugh

Even if Jason hadn't managed to sprain his stupid foot, he wouldn't exactly be partying; still, as he sat in the kitchen regretting his life choices, he glowered at his Western Civ notes. The fact that loud optimistic music - even if it was loud optimistic music he had picked - was pulsing through his head while his foot was throbbing out of time was beginning to sour his mood. He'd been eyeing the cooler on the table for a while. While he normally wouldn't drink, he was considering it if it would help take the edge of the pain. ...No, he decided, shaking his head. His head ached with the music.

"Gotta focus..." he muttered to himself. "This test isn't going to study itself." He painfully stood up and moved the hefty cooler somewhere he couldn't easily reach if he was sitting down, and bent back down over his papers.

He was methodically copying his notes over - a firm believer in the powers of repetition - but his mind was still wandering. It wasn't the music, and ti wasn't the pain, but something was distracting him: he was writing the same paragraph over again. Frustrated, Jason threw down his pencil and sighed. As long as he felt like this, he wasn't going to get anywhere with Ancient Rome. A sprained, or possibly broken, foot, he could handle; it was the pizza boy that was occupying his thoughts. It was a little ridiculous, Jason acknowledged, but he felt sorrier for that kid than he did for himself. Thirty pizzas? That had to be crazy on that time constraint, on top of the fact that it looked like the guy had had a pretty lousy day before then, too. At least, Jason hoped so; he preferred to believe that whoever Leo was, he wasn't normally that short-tempered. He had looked so angry, too, stomping back and forth in his lurid orange and purple pizza boy uniform , that Jason couldn't help but feel sorry for him. 

Jason wanted to apologize, and it was all he could think about. Who cared who the last pagan ruler of Rome was, or how their government worked? There was an wrongfully angry college-aged kid that needed an apology he probably hadn't gotten all day. Jason's stomach rumbled and he made a split second decision -- he was going to get a pizza.

\--

Leo leaned against the counter, facing the entrance of Olympic Pizza. He yawned once, and scowled at himself in the glass windows. He could have gotten a little more sleep if not for that stupid frat boy and his outrageous request. As it was, he had skipped a much needed nap and began his shift a few hours earlier than he was supposed to have. Now that it was getting late and fewer customers were ordering pizza, he was being forced to find creative ways to keep himself awake. Right now, he was making faces at the mirrored Leo, annoyed at the little details he was seeing in his reflection. Like the little curls he couldn't keep from hanging in front of his eyes, or the way his mouth always seemed to lean upwards.

It had just occurred to him that while he couldn't see outside, others could see in, when the door opened with the ringing of a bell. His face was burning up as it was, but when blondie the frat boy walked in, he could almost have died. He straightened up immediately.

"Careful," blondie said with a smile. "Your face could freeze like that."

Leo scowled and retorted, "What do you want? Thirty pizzas wasn't enough for you? Or are you just here to make my day even more inconvenient?" Not his one of his better comebacks, he had to admit, but he was embarrassed.

Frat boy shook his head.

"Pizza was for the party. I didn't exactly have any claim to any of it."

"So you're telling me," Leo said slowly, "that you're a frat boy... against partying. That's like a pizza boy hating pizza." Which one kind of did after a while, but he didn't need to tell blondie that and ruin his analogy. Metaphor. Thing.

"It's an academic fraternity."

"Uh-huh."

"Besides," Blondie said, pointing downwards. "Sprained foot -- not the greatest party favor, though you can do some sick moves on the dance floor in bandages."

Leo didn't look over the counter, but he could remember the guy having a bandaged extremity earlier. He felt like an idiot -- and if there was one thing Leo Valdez could not stand, it was feeling like an idiot. So he changed the subject the only way he knew how: abruptly and causing mild confusion.

"Sp, we have a 2 medium 2 topping pizzas for 10 deal, if you're a member."

"What?" Frat boy blinked, obviously startled. Way to stick the landing, Valdez. Nice recovery.

"An Olympic Pizza member," Leo sighed with mock exasperation, trying not to smirk. "Or 10 for a 2 topping large pizza."

"And how do I become a member?" the other asked, raising a perfectly blonde eyebrow.

Leo sighed again. All he really wanted was for this guy to leave, but here he was offering him a membership. Apparently Frat Boy had no intentions of leaving, either, so he pulled the member form up on the computer.

"Number?" He asked, skipping the name. After that came the address - Kappa Nu Tau building, what a surprise - and then, the dreaded name. He didn't want to know. 

"Jason Grace," Jason Grace said promptly. "And I'd like the large pizza."

"You get two toppings, Grace."

"I want extra cheese."

Leo gave him A Look. "I said two toppings -- did you hit your head, too?"

Jason grinned. "No -- double the cheese. I'm not stupid; I know they don't put that much cheese on when you ask for extra, so double it."

"Whatever." Leo gave the order to the guy making pizzas. Unfortunately, Grace waited there the whole time, trying to strike a conversation.

"So, you a student at the university?"

"Mm," Leo said noncommittally.

"What do you study?"

Leo dodged the questions until the pizza was done. Then, and only then, did he answer Jason.

"If you want to talk to me, then order a pizza. Have a nice night."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BONUS:
> 
> Jason sat at the table, trying not to drip extra extra cheese pizza on his Western Civ notes. He had almost finished the pizza when it hit him like a ton of bricks: he hadn't even apologized!


	4. Some People

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Leo delivers pizza to the frat house again, but this time he gets a little more conversation than he bargained for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so  
> here it is  
> on time  
> not necessarily of good quality, but on time  
> i feel like it's going to slowly asfdh or too quickly  
> my chapter titles are so lame man i can't even

Leo had done everything he could possibly think of to push last Friday's series of miserable events far out of his mind, but his rotten luck had other plans. Being October, the leaves had started falling all over the streets, so on his way to work he almost hit three or four stupid leaf blowers blowing in the street (in a busy street, at that). Now he was stuck at work, one of two people on shift at the time due to serious under-staffing. He was having a hard time not falling asleep in the evening light of Friday when the phone rang. He slid up into a standing position, yawned, and answered.

"Yo, Olympic Pizza - you spend, we send." he answered along the quiet laughter of the assistant manager. Leo liked to change it up when he answered the phone at work, if someone with a sense of humor was working with him.

"Uh, excuse me, but how late are you open today?" a politely familiar male asked. 

"All night, amigo," Leo responded, leaning backwards against the counter. The phone as wired, and he twisted the cord around one finger as he tried to figure out where he'd heard this voice before. "We're here all night for all your pizza emergencies." Comedic pause, and then...

"That's a huge relief. I need around twenty pizzas of whatever size and topping is most convenient for you guys here by midnight. But, uh, preferably before," the guy added quickly.

"And 'here' is..." Leo questioned, a sinking feeling in his stomach originating from his suspicion that he knew who he was speaking to now.

"Oh -- sorry, the Kappa Nu Tau building."

"Of course." Leo sighed into the receiver. "So, what, cutting back on your pizza intake, frat boy? Thirty just not too much for you?"

"We had way too much left over," guy said. What was his name again? Something Grace? Jerry? Jacob? Jeff?

"What a shame." It wasn't a shame. "Expect these before midnight at some point, Grace. Cash or credit?"

Something Grace paused for a moment after hearing the total.

"I guess cash."

Jesus, Leo thought. These frat boys really were as loaded as he'd always heard they were. A few more business exchanges later and he was all set to hang up and make pizzas when Grace spoke again.

"So, are you a student at the college?" Leo could imagine Blondie Grace smiling curiously.

"This isn't a personal call, Grace -- it's a business line. For business."

"Hey, you told me that if I wanted to talk to you I should order a pizza, right?"

"So you're ordering twenty pizzas just to talk to me? How sweet," Leo said sarcastically. "It's six. I've got some pizzas to make. Ciao."

He hung up before Grace could protest anymore and shouted the order back to Joey, assistant manager extraordinaire. In the process of methodically tossing pizza dough, Leo had some time to think.

Why in the hell did this guy want to know about him so much, anyway? All he did was deliver pizza and speak rudely to him. Leo didn't get it at all, but that didn't stop him from leaving a message on one of the pizzas in pizza toppings: first year. Writing in black olives is not the easiest thing ever. It might sound easy, but it most certainly wasn't. It was barely readable, and Leo shrugged. It didn't matter if Grace got the message or not. At eight, another employee showed up to help out, so by nine Leo and the assistant manager both left to deal out the pizzas. After last week, he did NOT want to go through the ordeal alone.

When they got there, there was already music pouring out of the windows and drowning the concrete in heavy notes. He didn't know the song, but he had to admit it was catchy. The door opened almost as soon as the bell rang, and Grace stood in the door way. The music almost blew Leo away.

"Did someone order twenty pizzas?" Joey asked, and Grace looked confused.

"What?" He shouted over the music.

"WE HAVE YOUR PIZZA!" Leo yelled, and Grace nodded, holding out his arms. Leo rolled his eyes.

"Just get out of the way," he semi-shouted, and pushed past . He was suddenly lost in the sea of people.

"Follow me," he heard a voice say directly into his ear. "Kitchen's this way." A cool, firm hand grabbed his arm gently and pulled him through the throng and into a darker room. A light flickered on and Grace's face came into view.

"Welcome to Kappa Nu Tau, Leo. This is the kitchen." He gestured at the pretty not clean kitchen. There was a yellow binder on the table, the only clean space in the room. As he moved the binder hurriedly somewhere else, Leo frowned.

"How'd you know my name? You stalking me or something?"

"Name tag," he replied, patting the table in a gesture for Leo to set the pizzas down.

Stupid! Stupid stupid stupid

To face - or rather, ignore - his embarrassment, Leo set down the pizzas and left to bring more in, Joey right behind him. They were in and out until they brought the last pizza, the one with the message spelled out in black olives.

"This one," he said to Grace without directly looking at him, "is yours."

"But I didn't order one fo--"

"Jason," Leo said, finally remembering the frat boy's first name. "Take the pizza."

Jason Grace nodded, confused but unfazed. After taking the pizza, he said something that completely surprised Leo:

"Hey, you wanna stay?"

Leo looked up quickly and blinked. Did he mean for the party? No.. people like that - popular, athletic, rich - didn't invite people like him - a loner, too studious, not so well off - to go to parties. What was going on here? Was he just being mocked this whole time?

"I'm working right now," he finally said, tugging his lurid Olympic Pizza cap down over his eyes. "But thanks." Or something like that.

Joey clapped Leo on the back, startling him. He laughed.

"Come on, Valdez; you work more than anyone I've ever met. Take a break!"

"I need the money," Leo muttered. He bet Jason Grace had his entire college education covered by some stupid athletic scholarship or something, an easy ride. Leo was barely here on a math and science scholarship he had to work his ass off for. No time for parties.

"It'll be okay," his assistant manager reassured him.

"I don't get paid salary like some people," Leo replied angrily. He glanced back at Jason. "Thanks again, but I'll have to pass. Not all of us are here for free. Have a nice night."

He left two bewildered men staring after him as he drove back. He felt like an idiot, and he was so sure that was what Grace's intention had been.

People like that just didn't care about people like him.


	5. The Limit Does Not Exist

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jason has a terrible math teacher and a fantastic math tutor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm starting to dislike this au. Maybe it's because I'm focusing on it so much and I don't have any beta readers but I just feel so gross about it and about how I'm writing it. ah... sorry. I hope it's still enjoyable.

The first thing Jason ahd noticed about his personal pizza was that it wasn't on the receipt. Was it free? Did that kid buy him pizza, technically? He smiled. The next thing he noticed, though, was that there were olives on the pizza. It looked like they maybe spelled out something, but it was a little hard to tell. Fr..fresh? Was that supposed to be an answer to his question, if he was a student? That probably meant he was a freshman, then. That meant he was in the same year of college as Jason, then. He hated olives, but on that pizza he didn't quite mind them. There was a final thing he noticed when he bit into he pizza -- extra cheese.

-

Jason ordered pizza every week, with a new question for the pizza boy: what was his major? Where was he from? Did he have any siblings? And every week, a mysteriously free pizza would show up with extra cheese and olive words, answering him: Engineering (spelled in a circle, being too long), Texas, no. Jason was pefectly content to befriend the ill-tempered pizza boy at the slow rate of a question a week, but the other guys in the fraternity agreed on an executive order: NO MORE PIZZA.They were aboslutely sick of it, so they delegated party food duties to Dakota. And so it was that Jason found himself ordering pizza for one the next Friday night instead of working on the pre-calculus homework that had built up the past week. He dialed the familiar number, staring down at numerals. It was later than usual (midnight - and he still hadn't done his homework), so he wasn't sure that Leo was even working until he heard the voice.

"Olympic Pizza - what do you want, Grace?"

Jason grinned in the dim light of the kitchen. So he was working, after all. The smile on his face made the cool kitchen feel a little warmer.

"Memorize my number, Valdez?"

On the other end, Leo snorted.

"You order pizza from the same place for over a month and I'm weird for knowing your number?" He sounded incredulous and Jason could imagine the irritable boy rolling his eyes or shaking his head as he spoke.

Jason shook his head. Math was what he needed to focus on, so he just needed to end this phone call quickly and get back to work.

"If you know my number, you should know my order, right?" At this point Jason was only half focusing on the conversation, trying to figure out what his homework wanted him to do. Give an example of a limit that approaches.. wait, what? What did that even mean?

"You sure you want me to handle this without an order?"

Had Jason actually been paying complete attention, he would have heard the pure mischief in Leo's voice and probably would have changed his mind about not ordering, but, as it was, he simply said, "I trust you," without thinking. He didn't hear the quiet laugh into the receiver.

"Anything you wanna know this time, Grace?"

"Any good at math?" Jason said without thinking, frowning and trying to evaluate the limit of x as it approached -2.

There was a pause on the other end before Leo finally said, "See you soon."

Jason made an affirmative noise and hung up.

"The limit of x as it approaches -2 is -x squared plus 5x over x minus 5..." Jason suddenly paused for a moment, the pizza boy's words finally registering. "Did he say _see you soon_?"

Typically, Leo said something sarcastic, something with a little bit of humor and a little bit of an edge, so 'See you soon' was surprisingly mellow. Jason grinned to himself and leaned back as far as the stiff kitchen chair would allow him to. Music was blasting from the other room, but he felt pretty calm and focused, for once. If he closed his eyes, he could ignore everything else and just float, deep in his own thoughts. The music didn't reach him there. He felt like he was falling asleep, but his mind was wide awake.

He thought about the pizza boy. Jason realized that he probable seemed like another stuck up frat boy, but he genuinely found Leo interesting. He was naturally funny, and it just leaked through even his irritation. And while a few weeks ago it may have seemed that Leo had wanted nothing more than to get away from him, but it seemd like the pizza boy was actually warming up to him. The thought made him smile, but he had to wonder why he cared in the first place. Sure, he'd originally felt bad, but by this point he just enjoyed seeing the same face every week; the curly hair, the sharp nose, the frown that always seemed like it was supposed to turn into a smile or a smirk. Maybe it was that he'd been focusing too much on school and not really interacting with people, but he felt really invested in this... whatever it was, and he wanted to keep seeing Leo. It was almost like--

"Grace."

Jason blinked himself out of his stupor and straightened up immediately. Leo was sitting in front of him, across the kitchen table. Jason had never seen him not wearing the Olympic PIzza uniform; the faded T-shirt was a welcome change to the lurid orange outfit he wore when delivering pizzas.

"When did -- " Jason sputtered, face very slowly warming. Not like he'd just been thinking about anything that would make him feel embarrassed right now. Not like he was suddenly noticing things, little unimportant things, about the pizza boy that he hadn't paid attention to before. Without the hat, he could see the way Leo's hair - curly and unruly - stook up at the sides and the top.

"While you were taking a nap," Leo replied. His eyes -- even in the dim light, Jason could really see them for the first time, now that they weren't covered by the edge of a hat. They weren't some extraordinary color, but the brown was warm and earthy. Friendly, sarcastic and irrtated or not. Jason coughed and looked away.

"I wasn't asleep," he protested lamely, rubbing the back of his neck. The warmth was starting to fade, ebbing with his embarrassment as the banter continued.

"Sure," Leo rolled his eyes. "I was surprised; usually you're, like, waiting at the door." His lips twisted up into a smirk and Jason tried not to watch as he spoke. Every movement was just so fluid... he forced his eyes up.

"I am not _ever_ waiting by the door," he retorted indignantly, crossing his arms. Actually, he was, but that was because you couldn't hear the doorbell ring over the music unless you were literally right by the door.

"Whatever you say, Grace." His eyes sparkled.

"Anyway," Jason cleared his throat and continued. "Who even let you in?"

"I dunno. Some guy with a red solo cup." Leo shrugged. "Oh, before I forget..." He turned and grabbed something from the chair beside him. It was a pizza box. He pushed it in Jason's direction as the other boy scrambled to move all his math papers out of the way. "Your pizza."

Somthing in his tone made Jason look up. Leo's mouth was twitching, like he was trying to keep himself from smirking. Something was fishy about this pizza. Hesitantly, Jason opened the box and stared inside. He looked up then, giving Leo a sheepish smile.

"Guess I really should have specified what my order was," he said wrly, shaking his head. Although, now that he thought about it, he hadn't even specified one. He had really been out of it earlier.

"Sorry," Leo laughed, not sounding apologetic at all. "I thought your order had something to do with cheese, but I couldn't quite remember. It was no cheese, right?" His eyes shone in the dim lighting and Jason forced his attention to the bare pizza. There was indeed not a single speck of cheese on the entire pie, but written across in what looked like and smelled like garlic sauce was some sort of math thing. The square root of one plus Tangent squared C? Jason only barely remembered trigonometry and most of what he remembered was hating it.

"Um, so--- is this an answer to a question or something?"

"You asked me if I was any good at math."

"Oh, right." Jason blinked. He'd forgotten that he'd even asked a question. Jeez. "Right. So, does this mean something? Or is it just an equation?"

"It's just math," Leo said a little quickly. "Or, well, I mean, it says the square root of one plus tangent squared C, but that's it. It, uh, simplifies to Secant of C."

Jason shook his head again. Secant. One over cosine, right? Trigonometry was not something he devoted a lot of time to thinking about, really. Not even when he was studying it.

"Why are you here, anyway?" Jason asked instead. "Normally you just kind of breeze in and leave as quickly as you can. It's like you're allergic to parties."

"I kind of figured you needed help with some sort of math thing," Leo said. "But, hey, I can leave if you want. I'm not against going to bed before like two in the mmoring."

"What about work?"

Leo gestured to his lack of a pizza uniform.

"I'm off right now. What math are you in?"

"Precalculus," Jason told him, and that smirk slid up one corner of Leo's face. Jason was a little embarrassed. Precalculus was probably really simple to someone that wanted to be an engineer.

"Okay. So what are you having trouble with?" Leo scooted in further and moved the pizza box as Jason collected all his papers together.

"Limits," Jason said lamely, and Leo gave him a startled look.

"Limits? What the hell kind of precalculus class are you in?" Leo frowned and Jason shrugged.

"Like I know. He taught it to us and I just can't wrap my head around it. I don't really get the way he teaches."

"Or maybe that's because he's teaching you calculus," Leo said in his familiar irritable tone. "What exactly is it you don't get about limits?"

"Any of it. He didn't, um, really cover it well. He just kind of threw it at us."

"Ugh," Leo sighed. "Okay.. here, let's start from the beginning." He tore a piece of notebook paper out of Jason's binder and grabbed a pen. With quick and sloppy movements, he wrote a limit. Jason craned his neck to look at it; the limit of x as it approaches -2 was -x squared minus 5x / x minus 5. The problem from his homework.

"Now, watch," Leo said, so Jason focused on the paper. "The limit of x is this equation, right?"

"Right."

"Here we can do what's called direct substitution. So, if you plug -2 in for x..." Leo wrote the simplified version underneath the original and Jason tried not to notice how his hands were deft and calloused. "...you have -4 plus -10 over -2 minus 5, which is?"

He looked up and Jason, distracted by Leo's hands, stuttered, "U-uh, negativee 14 over n-negative 7. I mean, negative 2."

"Right," Leo nodded, and reached beside him for something. He brought up a slice of super cheesy pizza. He must have noticed Jason's surprised expression, because he grinned and said, "What, you don't think I'm gonna eat that, right?"

Jason rolled his eyes and began to eat the specialty no cheese pizza just to spite him.

"Okay, okay, direct substituion. I got it. What's next?"

Leo showed him next how to evalutate limits when direct substitution led to indeterminate form, using factoring and multiplying by a conjugate. Then he taught Jason how to evaluate infinite limits (divide by the variable with the highest power on the bottom), properties of limits, graphing limits, and creating limits with specific parameters. Four hours and sixteen slices of pizza later, Jason understood two things. The first, how to evaluate limits. The second, that he was falling for the pizza boy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about all the math. And for the record we actually learned limits in my precal class so it's not like I just threw it in there. [also i wrote this during my adventures in limits sorry]  
> ORIGINAL ENDING AS WRITTEN IN MY NOTEBOOK  
> Four hours and sixteen slices of pizza later, Jason understood two things. The first, how to evaluate limits. The second, that he wanted to fuck the pizza boy.


	6. Two Weeks Notice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jason stopped calling, and Leo doesn't want to think about it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow hi guys i am so sorry for the lateness  
> firstly i was on vacation and when i got back i was struggling to settle in and write other projects and it just wasn't working BUT  
> it's still july so i didn't fail completely  
> 

Leo wasn’t going to admit it to anyone, but he had actually begun to anticipate the end of the week. The end of the week meant Friday, and Friday meant that frat boy blondie Jason Grace was going to call in an order for one large pizza with two toppings: extra cheese and extra cheese. Sure, Leo still bristled with the appropriate amount of venom over the phone, but anyone could tell it was just a front. He whistled alternative rock when he made pizzas now, and lingered by the phone in a way that could only be interpreted as waiting for someone to call. It was enough that the manager, Charlotte, would demand, “What the hell’s gotten into Valdez lately?”, but Joe kept his smirks and his comments to himself.

On that particular Friday, Leo was inconspicuously standing by the phone, reading through a chapter in his calculus textbook. He wondered briefly if he was supposed to stay and help Grace with math again. The two weeks following the No Cheese Pizza incident, he had stayed to help with the precalculus: polar graphs and dot products, on top of the limits. He wondered what crazy teaching regime Grace’s teacher even had, because it was all over the place. It was no wonder that Jason was so confused. If he was staying to tutor, that meant he needed to think of another math pun. Last time it was √-1 2^3 ∑ π (which Jason found hilarious), so this week… well, he’d have plenty of time to think of one, right? Or so he thought, until the phone rang. He almost dropped it when he grabbed the receiver. Calm down, Valdez. What are you so excited about?

“O-olympic Pizza,” he stuttered, feeling his neck warming rapidly. Why was he so embarrassed?

“Yeah, I’d like to order a pizza…”

Leo sighed. It wasn’t even him. Of course not - it was only six o’clock. Jason didn’t call in his order until around midnight - or at least, that’s what he’d done the past three weeks. Leo just needed to calm down. No one was supposed to be this excited about delivering a pizza.

“Breathe, Valdez,” he muttered, making a note of the order that was just called in. “It’s just a pizza.”

Still, every time the phone rang, he leapt for it, expecting any minute to hear some douchey frat boy trying to make himself heard over the loud alternative rock from the next room, but it never came. When he finally got off work at two (he’d been previously leaving early to help Jason out, though he’d never tell him), Jason had never called. Leo didn’t say anything and Joe just gave him a look as he left, shoulders slumping.

It was fine. He probably just had a lot of work of there was a special occasion or something like that. Leo was sure he’d get a call next week.

...Except, the next week, Jason didn’t call either. Leo waited by the phone again all night (much to Joe’s amusement) but, while a lot of orders came in, none of them called for a large, two topping pizza with extra extra cheese. That night, as he left work, he made no efort to hide the fact that he felt absolutely shitty. Two weeks in a row wasn’t an accident. It couldn’t be.

I bet he found some Chinese place or something, Leo thought bitterly. After all, everyone eventually got sick of eating the same thing week after week. Jason was an Olympic Pizza member, though. The least he could have done was --

\-- what, call? Jesus. He sounded like a jealous girlfriend. I know you’ve been going behind my back with that cheap takeout place! He really sounded like that. Sure, customer loyalty was great, but there would be more customers. There always were.

The thing that bothered Leo about Jason not even bothering to mention it to him was that he had started to feel like they were friends. It was stupid; he had probably been right about Jason all along.

The next week, his manager approached him and told him to go check on Jason.

“Can’t be losing our devoted customers,” she told him.

And so it was that on that Friday Leo found himself standing outside of Kappa Nu Tau, holding a complimentary “Welcome back! We missed you!” pizza. He didn’t want to ring the doorbell. If Jason really had stopped ordering pizza for good, he didn’t want to be here bugging him about his decision. He was actually considering just leaving and maybe eating the pizza by himself when the door opened. He hadn’t even rung the doorbell.

It was only six, but Leo was still expecting there to be music pouring out of the fraternity. Instead, he was face to face with Jason Grace and the only thing there was was pure silence. Jason looked completely surprised to see him.

Leo swallowed and held out the pizza silently, and Jason frowned. I guess he really doesn’t want pizza after all.

“I dropped my precalculus class,” Jason said.

Leo’s recovery from shock - really, who would have expected that comment out of the blue - was swift.

“You don’t deserve this pizza,” he said with finality, pulling it to his chest. “And after all the time and effort I put into tutoring you, too. I can’t believe you.”

Jason shook his head. 

“Why are you here?”

“We do this dumb thing for regular members where they get a free welcome back pizza if they haven’t ordered in a while,” Leo explained exasperatedly. “Though, to be honest, I don’t think you really deserve it now.”

“It’s just--” Jason stopped and shook his head again. “It’s kind of cold. Why don’t you come in for a minute? Everybody else is out on Thanksgiving break and I’m kind of sick of being alone.”

Leo didn’t look directly at Jason as he replied, “I can’t. I have to get back to work. A surprising amount of people order pizzas during Thanksgiving holidays.”

“What about later?” Jason asked, almost a little quickly.

Leo didn’t know how to respond to that. He figured Jason had to be really lonely and desperate to want to hang out with him. At least… well. At least it seemed like maybe they really were friends.

Without any more thoughts on the matter, Leo said, “Count on it.” He tipped his hat, handed Grace the pizza, and went back to the car.

He’d never spent copious amounts of time in the fraternity. Mostly, he’d just sat in the kitchen and tutored Jason in math (something that was apparently not going to continue, thanks to Jason Grace completely giving up). As he drove back to work, he couldn’t help but wonder.

If Joe noticed that Leo was a little jittery that night, he said nothing about it. Leo couldn’t focus -- what did the rest of Kappa Nu Tau look like? Was it nice or was it gross and messy? Would he get a tour of the whole place? What were they going to do?

When he was finally finished with his shift at 10 - shorter hours during the holiday -, Leo was pretty pumped. Aside from tutoring Jason (which he had still counted as work) Leo didn’t really have much free time, between school and working two part time jobs. Pizzas in hand and attitude in check, he stopped outside of Kappa Nu Tau for the second time that day. And for the second time that day, the door opened before he could ring the bell (or, more likely, kick the door once or twice).

Jason stood there, a grin on his face. His hair looked damp, like he’d just recently gotten out of the shower. His skin was glowing; he looked like a god.

Leo swallowed.

“How do you keep doing that?” He demanded, pushing his split-second awe back into the part of his brain that he ignored.

“I heard your car,” Jason said sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck. He looked embarrassed.

“Oh. Well, anyway, are you going to let me in?” Leo lifted the hand with the pizzas. “It’s cold as hell out here.” It’d been cold earlier, but six hours later it was literally freezing.

Jason side stepped out of the doorway so Leo could come in and said, “Well, this is Kappa Nu Tau, when it’s not a fire safety hazard.”

Okay, so maybe Leo hadn’t expected it to be a complete disaster zone, but it was normal for places like this to at least be a little messy, wasn’t it? But instead, the place was completely spotless. As Jason gave him a quick tour, he was repeatedly surprised. No dirty dishes, all empty trash bags, no clothes anywhere on the floor. Or, so he assumed; he didn’t get to see any of the bedrooms.

“Jesus Christ,” he said once they were back where they started “What kind of frat boys are you? I don’t think hospitals are this clean.”

Jason shrugged, that same embarrassed look on his face.

“The place was kind of a mess, so I cleaned up a little.”

Leo gave him a look like Jason was crazy -- because he was. He plopped down onto a couch and looked up at Jason from there.

“Dude, you didn’t have to clean the entire place just for me,” he said easily, though the thought of it made him smile. “I’m used to messes. My dorm room looks like a hurricane hit.”

“It’s -- that’s not it,” Jason said quickly, but Leo could see the tips of his ears reddening. “I just don’t like messes.”

“Sure you don’t, Grace,” Leo retorted, closing his eyes as he stretched out on the couch.

“I don’t,” Jason insisted, pushing Leo’s legs off the couch. “If you’re going to stretch out, you could at least take off your shoes.”

Leo sat up as Jason sat down.

“Please. Like anyone else pays attention to things like that around here.”

Jason gave Leo a look that he couldn’t quite read.

“Octavian cares. That’s why we move most of the furniture when we have parties.”

“Octavian?” Leo made a face. What a mouthful of a name. Who names their kid Octavian?

“He’s the fraternity president.” Jason made a face that probably matched the one Leo had just made. “He wants everything a particular way. That’s my job right now, since I’m the only one here.”

Leo frowned. “I didn’t think organization was in the spirit of fraternities.”

Jason laughed.

“Well, it is in an academic fraternity.”

Leo’s ears perked up at that. Academic fraternity? Guess he shouldn’t have judged Jason the way he had. He may have been the for sports, Leo didn’t know, but he was in an academic fraternity. Why did he need math help at all? Leo decided to change the subject.

“So, Grace,” he smirked. “You have me here; what are you going to do with me?”

If Jason heard the teasing tone in Leo’s voice, he didn’t respond to it. He just shrugged again.

“I don’t know, we could play games. Watch Netflix. Study.”

“Study?” Leo snorted. “Study what? You dropped your math class. Why is that, anyway?”

Jason made a face and sighed.

“Okay, so, the first week I didn’t order pizza because I was studying for a really important test in that class.”

“And you didn’t think I could help you with that?” Leo asked incredulously.

“I thought you would only distract me,” Jason said, not meeting his eyes. “Anyway, I bombed the test. I couldn’t face you after that, so…”

“What was the test on?” Leo asked, probing Jason since he didn’t seem willing to talk about it. He wondered what Jason had meant by saying that he thought Leo would be a distraction, but he knew better than to ask about that. Better to ask about math.

“It was cumulative,” Jason groaned into his hands. “Freaking cumulative.”

So that included everything they’d learned since August. Leo hated it when teachers did that.

“Why drop the class?”

“I don’t really want my GPA to plummet. I’ll retake it next semester.” He straightened up and glanced over at Leo. “So? What do you want to do?”

Honestly? Leo felt like he really just wanted to think, but he felt pretty bad about Jason having to be alone all week and he knew exactly how it felt to be alone for extended periods of time.

“Let’s watch something,” he said eventually. “You said you had Netflix, right?”

Jason grinned. “Yeah, man. What are you in the mood for?” His smile was so bright that it was nearly strident and Leo had to look away.

“It’s the wrong holiday, but have you ever seen American Horror Story?”

“Actually, no, I haven’t, but I’ve heard about it. Is it good?”

“It’s great,” Leo said. “But you’ve gotta turn off the lights; it’s supposed to be scary.”

So they made popcorn and turned off the lights and sat on opposite ends of the couch. The first episode was a little awkward - at least, to Leo - but Jason didn’t seemed bored, so they continued.

Leo didn’t know when he fell asleep; all he knew was that when he woke up, he felt a pressure on his shoulder. He himself was leaning on the arm of the couch (and oh, gross, he’d been drooling) and, struggling to sit up, he was met with a surprising sight. Jason’ was leaning against him, head on his shoulder.

Leo swallowed, but this time the unwanted feeling didn’t stay down. With Jason asleep, silent and steadily breathing, he could see what he was usually too wound up to notice: he was fucking beautiful, all straight nose and perfect bone structure and symmetrical features and

Leo scrambled off of the couch, tripping over his own feet. He looked back quickly -- Jason was slumped over on the couch cushion in what looked like a really uncomfortable position, but still asleep. Leo sighed, relieved. He scribbled a note on the empty bag of popcorn and left, resolving to never think about the incident again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> jason's thought process: "OKAY if i ace this test i'm gonna tell him that i think hes hot"  
> or  
> if you remember rock lee from naruto  
> "if i catch all of these leaves before they touch the ground, sakura will like me!" ...or something like that.
> 
> i hope you enjoyed this chapter? i'm pretty sure this is the longest one yet. i think they're gonna keep getting longer, too. 
> 
> Next Time, on Extra Cheese: Who goes camping in December?!


	7. Cold Pack

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The fraternity has this crazy Spartan tradition of cold camping, and Jason gets Leo's phone number.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> unoriginal title is unoriginal. So hey! This isn't the whole chapter, but I would like to make sure i have an update today in case I don't finish the chapter in time, so here is about half of it.
> 
> Love you guys <3 thanks for waiting on me. you're the best.

Every year, the Kappa Nu Tau fraternity did the dumbest thing you could possibly do in December -- they went camping. Jason had no idea why they did it, honestly; it was a little too Spartan in his opinion, but apparently it was some sort of a tradition. Dakota told him that the whole fraternity did it last year, too, so it wasn’t like it was something stupid and insane Octavian came up with when he became the leader. Jason thought he’d finished all that camping during bad seasons thing when he quit boy scouts, but there he was Thursday night, packing a duffel and trying to find his sleeping bag. He eventually gave up and leaned against his bed, sighing. He scrolled through his contacts with the idea that maybe his sister still had it from when she went camping with her sorority in New York, but his finger stopped at Olympic Pizza.

Well, there was a thought. Tomorrow would have been his usual pizza night, but he wasn’t going to be around. He could at least be nice and notify the pizza boy, right? He wondered if it would be weird. Last time, Leo was already gone when he woke up. He left a note - something along the lines of sorry had to work catch ya later - but Jason still felt weird about the whole thing. Deciding not to focus on that, he hit dial. Within moments, someone picked up.

“Olympic Pizza - what can I do for you?” The voice was a lower register than Leo’s and for a moment, Jason was too startled to speak. He hadn’t even considered the fact that maybe the pizza boy wasn’t even in today.

“I--uh,” he stammered. “I was just-- is Leo Valdez there?”

“This is the frat boy, right? You know it isn’t Friday, don’t you?”

“Yeah, no, I know that, but I won’t be in town and I just wanted to.. let him...” Jason trailed off, realizing how ridiculous he must sound. “You know what? Never mind.”

He could just barely hear the sound of laughter through the receiver and his stomach twisted. He sounded like an idiot, he knew it; no one called a pizza place to say that they weren’t ordering pizza.

“Listen, kid; he’s already off work, but I can give you his personal number.”

Jason said yes without thinking; it was only once he hung up that he realized that

  1. that was pretty weird

  2. he would have to explain how and why he got Leo’s number

  3. it would seem even weirder at that point




 

He shook his head and decided that he really needed to think things through a little more, but he would call anyway. So what if it sounded weird? It was no weirder than the week before, watching Netflix on the couch. It was no weirder than waking up and realizing with a pang that Leo had left without saying goodbye....Yeah, that was definitely a weird thought. He couldn’t think about that anymore. He dialed the number and called, swallowing nervously as it rang. Once...twice...three times, and--

“Hello?”

It was the first time Jason had heard the lack of finality from him. At the pizza place, Leo always answered with this expectant tone. In war, the element of surprise is vital… but, then again, this wasn’t war.

“Uh, hi,” Jason answered finally, throat dry. “Valdez?”

“The one and only,” came the swift reply, followed by: “Hang on a second -- Grace? Is that you?”

“Yeah, it’s me.” Jason was actually pacing, and he forced himself to stop, leaning against the desk in his room. What did he have to be nervous about?

“How did you -- never mind. I think I know how. What’s up? Did you decide to give math another try?”

Jason was kind of impressed at the logical jump and the ease with which it was pulled off. At the very least, he felt a little less nervous as he settled into the ease of their typical banter.

“Not until it apologizes. It doesn’t deserve me. I actually, uh, wanted to tell you something. Something kind of important, I guess.” He waited, feeling the silence as it ticked by. When Leo finally spoke, it was with wariness.

“Something important? What, did you discover you’re actually allergic to cheese or something?”

“That’s normally something you discover before you eat, like, ten extra cheese pizzas.”

“Oh, yeah, good point.”

“Actually, the thing is--” Jason stopped and hesitated for a moment. Would it even matter if he wasn’t here? He had been doing this for weeks now, sure, and he knew he was going to miss the interaction, but that didn’t mean Leo thought it was important.

Well, maybe it did. Leo had stayed to hang out, and Jason had thought that maybe, just maybe, before the sarcasm kicked in, there had been a brief expression of relief on the pizza boy’s face. He was just being stupid. As usual.

“The thing is…?” Leo queried. “What, exactly? The Thing, like from the Fantastic Four, or are we talkin’ severed hand, Addams family style?”

Jason rolled his eyes, but smiled at the wall.

“Who knew you were such a geek?”

“Hey, don’t tell me you don’t like the Fantastic Four, man. The Human Torch? Flame on!”

“I’ve never seen it,” he confessed, though he was sure that whoever the Human Torch was, he was Leo’s favorite. “Anyway, that’s not important. I--”

“Not important?” Leo interrupted. “Whoa, whoa, whoa, Grace, hold up. You’ve never seen the Fantastic Four?”

“I don’t watch superhero movies.”

“So you’ve never seen Spiderman? Or Ironman? Or Batman, Catwoman, anything?”

“Never.” Jason shrugged to himself. “Except - wait, I saw one of the older Superman movies. Once.” It had been so long ago he’d almost forgotten watching it, but most memories of his mother were a little foggy, and he’d seen it with her.

“Geez, I can’t believe this. Next time we hang out, I’m bringing all of them, don’t even think I won’t.”

“Oh, no, I don’t doubt it.” He couldn’t stop the small smile spreading across his face, though. The next time we hang out. He wants to hang out more.

“Wait, sorry, that got a little off topic. What was the thing, Grace?”

Jason had actually almost forgotten the reason he had called entirely, but talking to Leo lately always had that effect on him. He sat on the edge of the bed and glanced at the mostly-packed bag beside him.

“Well, I’m camping this weekend and we’re leaving tomorrow, so I won’t really be needing a pizza.”

“Camping?” Leo snorted. “If you don’t want a pizza, Grace, you don’t gotta make up excuses.”

“No, really, we--” Jason stopped as an idea hit him. It was probably stupid, but-- “You want to go?”

There was a silence, and then a small laugh.

“Do I, pizza boy Leo, want to go camping in December with a bunch of crazy frat boys?”

“Yeah, I get it, it’s a little--”

“I’m in,” Leo said, and Jason could practically hear the grin through the receiver. “I’ve gotta see this.”

More like feel it, Jason thought. It was probably going to get below freezing, but he was just glad Leo had said yes.

“Great,” he managed. You’re absolutely insane, but great.

“Was that it, Superman? Cause I kinda gotta pack now, man.”

“Yeah, no, absolutely,” Jason said, running a hand through his hair. Superman. That was a nickname he could live with. “I still need to get some things together, too.”

He looked at his half empty duffle bag as he spoke. He still had to find the sleeping bag - he still had to call Thalia - but now he had a more pressing issue - getting permission.

He got off of the phone and laid back on his bed. Technically, they were allowed to invite outsiders whenever they wanted - the more, the merrier - but that was a rule before Octavian was the leader. Something made Jason think that the older man wouldn’t want anything to do with new people unless they were initiates he could haze all to hell, but he was going to take the chance, anyway. First, though…

He called Thalia - the sleeping bag had to be found.

 

 


End file.
